Literary Experiments and Emotional Catharsis

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out

Jazz entered my life quite late — especially if you consider my obsession with trying diffrent kinds of music. As it turned out, my first foray was directly into the big league — Coltrane/Davis and co. The thing is, Coltrane might be hard to love, but if you love him, it’s hard to love anyone else. So for a while I gulped down anything and everything by Coltrane and Davis that I could lay my hands on.

Then one day, I heard Take Five. It floored me, for despite it being serious Jazz (as opposed to a lot of feel-good Jazz) composition, there was a striking melody that accompanied it. For a while, I was under the impression that it was Miles Davis Quartet, as that’s how the mp3 that I got was tagged, wrongly.

Finally one day I looked for Take Five on google and got to know it was Dave Brubeck Quartet that featured in their album — Time Out. In a way Take Five, that amazing composition, sets the tone of this highly experimental album, which Dave Brubeck wasn’t even sure he wanted to release. Apart from Paul Desmond’s masterful saxophone (who incidentally composed it), there is a noteworthy solo by the drummer Joe Morello which lifts the piece to another height.

Yet Time Out has more to it that Take Five. Three to Get Ready impresses by its delicate treatment, while Kathy’s Waltz has it’s own charm. Another noteworthy piece is Strange Meadow Lark, a very nicely paced melody.

Dave Brubeck’s Time Out is IMO a good start to serious Jazz along with Coltrane’s My Favorite Thingsand Davis’ Kind of Blue. All of them have an underlying melody that make them easier on the ear, and yet get you hooked onto the magic of Jazz, its complexity its imporvizations.

Related

Post navigation

3 thoughts on “Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out”

I couldn’t agree more! Those are exactly the pieces I would recommend to any jazz-listener newbie. The only other piece not in the list that I’d push him/her to listen would be Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage. Or perhaps Astrud Gilberto’s “The Girl from Ipanema”.

Just happened to notice something interesting – the tagline for “Take Five” in the flyer says “Blue Rondo a la Turk”. The reference, of course, is to Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca”. But I wonder *why* that reference is there on the flyer in the first place :). Dude, if you have the CD with you, I’m gonna borrow it!